EP0698982A2 - Serveur à base de mémoire à semi-conducteur pour fournir information multimedia sur démande dans un réseau de grande extension - Google Patents

Serveur à base de mémoire à semi-conducteur pour fournir information multimedia sur démande dans un réseau de grande extension Download PDF

Info

Publication number
EP0698982A2
EP0698982A2 EP95480100A EP95480100A EP0698982A2 EP 0698982 A2 EP0698982 A2 EP 0698982A2 EP 95480100 A EP95480100 A EP 95480100A EP 95480100 A EP95480100 A EP 95480100A EP 0698982 A2 EP0698982 A2 EP 0698982A2
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
video
data
message
requested
requesting client
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Granted
Application number
EP95480100A
Other languages
German (de)
English (en)
Other versions
EP0698982B1 (fr
EP0698982A3 (fr
Inventor
Jack Lawrence Kouoheris
Manoj Kumar
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
International Business Machines Corp
Original Assignee
International Business Machines Corp
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by International Business Machines Corp filed Critical International Business Machines Corp
Publication of EP0698982A2 publication Critical patent/EP0698982A2/fr
Publication of EP0698982A3 publication Critical patent/EP0698982A3/fr
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of EP0698982B1 publication Critical patent/EP0698982B1/fr
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

Links

Images

Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/23—Processing of content or additional data; Elementary server operations; Server middleware
    • H04N21/231—Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion
    • H04N21/23106—Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion involving caching operations
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N21/00—Selective content distribution, e.g. interactive television or video on demand [VOD]
    • H04N21/20—Servers specifically adapted for the distribution of content, e.g. VOD servers; Operations thereof
    • H04N21/21—Server components or server architectures
    • H04N21/222—Secondary servers, e.g. proxy server, cable television Head-end
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N7/00—Television systems
    • H04N7/14—Systems for two-way working
    • H04N7/141—Systems for two-way working between two video terminals, e.g. videophone
    • H04N7/147—Communication arrangements, e.g. identifying the communication as a video-communication, intermediate storage of the signals
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04N—PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION
    • H04N7/00—Television systems
    • H04N7/16—Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems
    • H04N7/173—Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems with two-way working, e.g. subscriber sending a programme selection signal
    • H04N7/17309—Transmission or handling of upstream communications
    • H04N7/17336—Handling of requests in head-ends

Definitions

  • This invention relates to a method and apparatus for delivering multimedia and video data from a server over a communications network to requesting clients.
  • the systems for delivering information and entertainment services to an end user's home have three distinct components: the server system, the end user system, and the network for simultaneously connecting a large number of end users (clients) to the server.
  • the two most widely used systems for delivering information to the home are the public telephone network and the broadcast/cable television system.
  • the telephone network today provides access to electronically stored textual information such as bank account balances, as well as audio segments such as instructions for various office procedures.
  • the services contemplated are video on demand for movies, news, sports, TV programs etc., home shopping, interactive games, surrogate travel, and a wide variety of educational and information services.
  • all three components of the traditional information/entertainment delivery systems, the servers, the network, and the end user terminal (PC or set-top-box) need improvement to deliver the interactive multimedia services.
  • the PCs and set top boxes need the capability to receive and decompress full motion video and accompanying audio.
  • the network must have sufficient bandwidth to allow each user to have his own dedicated video channel to the server, and for most services, the server must be capable of delivering a large number of video streams concurrently at low cost.
  • the floating point support adds to the cost of the system without providing any benefit to the delivery of video/multimedia data.
  • the network protocols are optimized for reliable delivery of data over unreliable low speed network links links, network infrastructure and application environment of the early seventies, as opposed to less stringent reliability requirements of video over more robust modern networks, thus introducing unnecessary CPU overheads.
  • U.S. Patent 5,005,122 to Griffen et al proposes the use of server computers, in a network containing a large number of client computers, to provide services such as back up, software distribution etc. It does not address the design of servers for delivery of continuous media information.
  • U.S. Patent 5,218,697 to Chung proposes a method of providing a central file server in a network of heterogeneous file servers running different operating systems, different file servers, and different file systems. Chung teaches that local file servers can directly access the file system of the central file server by sending file system commands to it, rather than follow the traditional method of sending a file server request to the central server which must then translate it to appropriate file system command.
  • U.S. Patent 4,897,781 to Chang et al teach a network file system where clients have a local cache for opened files.
  • the patent teaches a method for making use of the already cached information from some file, for another access to the same file made with a different open command.
  • This invention describes a method for reducing the cost of delivering video streams by a factor of hundred to a thousand in comparison to traditional approaches by making enhancements to the network.
  • the proposed enhancement allows video/multimedia content to be stored in the switches or routers of a network in the format of network packets.
  • the multimedia application server transmits a control message to the switch or router storing the network packets for the requested video or multimedia information to send one or more of these packets to a specified client.
  • the switch or router receiving such instruction retrieves the requested packets, modifies the header and possibly the trailer information of the packets, particularly the routing information which allows the network to move these packets through a sequence of routers and switches to the specified client, and places these packets on the network.
  • semiconductor storage is used to store the prepacketized video, and special purpose hardware is used to retrieve the packets and modify the header information. See video dispatcher in FIG. 4 below and description of stream control and output adapter below.
  • Semiconductor storage can be augmented with disk storage to store video contents of low popularity. To support fewer streams, of several hundred to few thousand streams, only disks may be used, and a microcontroller/microprocessor can be used instead of the special purpose hardware to retrieve the packets and modify the header information.
  • FIG. 1 schematically illustrates the organization of data in a file of a UNIX operating system.
  • FIG. 2A schematically illustrates the environment in which the invention is implemented, and the off-loading of data in switches of the network with pointers to the off-loaded data being maintained in the host.
  • FIG. 2B schematically illustrates the preprocessed packets which are derived from the video content.
  • FIG. 3 schematically illustrates a shared buffer switch which will be modified to store preprocessed packets.
  • FIG. 4 schematically illustrates the modified shared buffer switch to store the preprocessed packets.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates the details of the video dispatcher unit of the modified shared buffer switch.
  • FIG. 6 schematically illustrates the format of the control message sent from the host processor to the switch.
  • FIG. 7 illustrates the flow of messages between the client, switch and host processor. More specifically the request message from the client to the host and the control message from the host to the switch is shown. The transmission of video packets in response to the control message from the switch to the client is also shown.
  • FIG. 8 is a schematic illustration of the preferred video memory used with this invention.
  • FIG. 9 is a schematic illustration of the modified output adapter of this invention.
  • FIG. 10 is a schematic illustration of an alternate embodiment of the invention using a different switch which does not have a shared buffer.
  • FIG. 11 illustrates an alternate method integrating semiconductor storage into the switch.
  • FIG. 12 illustrates the use of magnetic disk storage instead of semiconductor storage.
  • a continuous media stream could also consist of several streams of different media types multiplexed together as in MPEG-II (Motion Picture Expert Group) transport stream.
  • MPEG-II Motion Picture Expert Group
  • MPEG-II transport stream carrying one video and one audio channel as a video content.
  • each second of this video is compressed into 4 Megabits of digital data.
  • the embodiment of our invention has two distinct components, the first is the off-loading of the video content from the host or application server to the switches in the network, and the second is the switching hardware capable of storing video content and dispatching it when instructed by the host to the specified clients.
  • the first is the off-loading of the video content from the host or application server to the switches in the network
  • the second is the switching hardware capable of storing video content and dispatching it when instructed by the host to the specified clients.
  • the format in which video content is stored in the network and of the additional data that is stored with the video content to minimize the hardware required in the switches to retrieve and dispatch it to clients.
  • the hardware modifications/additions needed in a shared buffer switch to store video in semiconductor storage to implement the operations for allocating and reclaiming this storage, and to support the retrieval and dispatch of video content when requested by the host.
  • network switches other than shared buffer switches are employed, and disk storage is used in place of semiconductor storage.
  • the first step of our invention comprises of off-loading video content 900 (FIG. 2B) into the switches 60 (FIG 2A) of an ATM Broadband network 50.
  • the MPEG-II transport stream for a one hour program will be roughly 1.8 Gigabytes of digital data, 900.
  • this data 900 When stored in a general purpose computer running a Unix like operating system, this data 900 will be partitioned into 4 Kbyte pages 901 (FIG. 1), and stored perhaps on a magnetic disk, as roughly 450 thousand data blocks 910, with each data block having 4 Kbytes.
  • Inodes 911 and indirect blocks 912 collectively known as metadata.
  • This metadata is stored separately from the video content, i.e., in disk blocks different than those storing the video content. This metadata is used by the operating system to locate the pages belonging to a particular video file, and to further locate pages storing a specified region of data of the video content file.
  • a request message 6 being sent from client 20 through switches 60 of the network to host 10.
  • This request message will preferably be a remote procedure call made by a client invoking the video delivery procedure on the host with several parameters.
  • the first parameter of the request message will be the name or index of the video file requested by the client, selected from a list of available video files provided to the client by the server, earlier during the execution of an interactive multimedia application running on a distributed computing environment on the clients and servers.
  • a second parameter in the request-message will specify an offset relative to the start of the video file from where the playback of the video file should start.
  • a third parameter in the request message specifies on offset, either relative to the start of the video file or relative to starting offset, at which the play back of the video file should end.
  • a further parameter will specify whether the offset in the third parameter is relative to start of the video file or relative play back start position.
  • the offsets in the second and third parameters may be represented as time or number of data bytes.
  • the remote procedure calls are well known in the art, so the request messages will not be discussed further here. See (refer to : W. Rosenberry et.al., "Understanding DCE,” O'Reilley and Associates Inc., 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472, ISBN 1-56592-005-8, Sept. 1992), which is hereby incorporated by reference.
  • the host processes the request message and determines, as described below, if the requested video content is stored in one of the network switches. If so, the host sends control messages 8 to the switches containing the requested data. See FIGS. 2 and 6. In response to the control messages, the switches retrieve the video packets specified in the control messages and delivers these packets to the client.
  • FIG. 2A schematically illustrates a high level view of the system of this invention comprising host 10, clients 20, network 50 having a plurality of switches 60.
  • the host or application server which is usually a general purpose computer
  • the payload size will be typically 1 Kbyte to 16 Kbyte, and in our embodiment we choose it to be 1528 Bytes.
  • a payload of that size fits in 32 ATM cells 930, as shown in FIG. 2B.
  • Each payload in the host or application server is replaced with a pointer 925 comprising of a network switch address 926 and the address of the message 927 in the switch. See FIG.
  • each such pointer is expected to be between 8 to 16 bytes.
  • the video message 920 itself now represented by a pointer 925 in the host, is stored in the switch 60 specified by the switch address component 926 of the pointer, at the message address specified in the pointer, as shown in FIG. 2A.
  • the host uses a naming convention to assign one file type to all files comprising video content 900, and another file type to all files comprising of pointers to video messages stored in the network.
  • the host can maintain a table listing all video content files and having an entry to indicate whether the file is video content or a list of pointers to video messages stored in the switches of the network.
  • an eight byte ATM AAL5 convergence sublayer trailer 931 is appended to each payload 915, and the resulting bytes are reformatted into a video message 920 comprising of a sequence of ATM cells 930, as shown in FIG. 2B (In ATM networks, the network packets are called cells).
  • segmentation will be performed, if necessary, after the transport layer header/trailer is appended to the message, and network layer header and/or trailer will be appended to the segments prior to their being stored in the switch.
  • the fields in the network/transport/adaptation layer headers or trailers that can be precomputed at the time when the packet is being stored in the switch are precomputed and stored in the ATM cells at appropriate locations.
  • the last packet for each message has an 8 byte convergence sublayer (CSL) trailer 931, in which the message length and checksum fields are precomputed, and the user-to-user indication (UU) and the common part indication (CPI) fields are set to zero, before the message is stored in the switch.
  • CSL convergence sublayer
  • UU user-to-user indication
  • CPI common part indication
  • the ATM cells 930 with the header/trailers partially precomputed as discussed above comprise the preprocessed video packets.
  • a video message 920 is the basic unit of flow control in the network, and consequently the basic scheduling unit for access to video memory and transmission of video data to the client. If an ATM cell retrieved from the video memory is not the last cell of a video message, the switch automatically schedules the retrieval of the next cell in the video message.
  • the ATM cells of a video message are received by the client as a burst because the switch does not insert delays between the transmission of two ATM cells of a video message to control the transmission rate.
  • the size of the video message has to be restricted for efficient operation of the network, to provide quick response time in interactive multimedia applications, and to minimize the buffer requirements at the client.
  • short video messages would require frequent interactions between the host and the switches, requiring more powerful (and therefore more expensive) hosts, and more hardware in the switches to handle the increased number of control messages.
  • the above problem is resolved by enabling the switch to transmit several video messages to a client in response to a single control message received from the host.
  • additional information is created for each video message and stored with the video message in the network switch.
  • This information consists of the link field 940, and the flow control field 950, see FIG. 2b.
  • the link field in each video message 920 of a video stream 900 points to the next video message of that stream.
  • the host or application server can send a control message a switch specifying the address of the starting message and the number of subsequent messages to be sent, and the switch can then retrieve the subsequent messages using the link field 940.
  • the flow control field contains the playback time of the next video message, referenced from a fixed starting point.
  • the switch can insert the correct delay between the transmission of two video messages of the same stream, to maintain the proper rate for delivery of video of the data to the client.
  • FIG. 3 shows the high level architecture of a shared buffer switch.
  • a shared memory 400 At its core is a large shared memory 400, with an input bus 300 for data to be written into the memory, and an output bus 350 for data being read from the memory. Both the input bus 300 and the output bus 350 are 53 Bytes wide in our embodiment, the size of an ATM cell.
  • the packets (ATM cells) arriving on each of the high speed serial links 100 are processed in an input adapter 200 to examine the ATM cell header to determine which switch output 150 the packet must be routed to, and to swap the address (VPI (Virtual Path Identifier) and VCI (Virtual Circuit Indentifier)) fields of the cell in accordance with ATM networking methods. See &lbrk.l&rbrk..
  • the input adapter 200 deserializes the packet into a single 53 byte wide word and places it on the input bus 300, and simultaneously places the address of the switch output 150 to which this packet must be transferred to on out-address bus 310.
  • the packet is thus stored in the shared memory 400 at a location decided independently by the a controller 500.
  • the bus bandwidth matches the total bandwidth of all the incoming lines.
  • the shared memory 400 is organized as an array of 53 byte words 410, i.e., the basic unit of data transfer for read and write operations is 53 bytes, the size of an ATM cell. To improve the readability of subsequent discussion, we will refer to these 53 byte words in the shared memory as cells.
  • Each output link 150 has an output adapter 250 associated with it.
  • the adapters 250 for all output links are connected by the time multiplexed bus 350, similar to the bus 300 shared by the input adapters 200, to the shared memory.
  • a list of free cells in the shared memory 400 is maintained by the control section 500. This list is maintained in the FIFO queue 510.
  • Each output link 150 has a FIF0 queue 520 associated with it in the control section 500. These queues are logically distinct, but could be implemented using a single physical memory.
  • the queue 520 stores the addresses of the ATM cells which the corresponding output adapter must retrieve from the share memory and deliver to the network. To store an incoming packet into the shared memory the address of a free cell is obtained from the list of free cells 510, and placed on the write address bus 530.
  • this address is dequeued from the list of free cells 510, and enqueued into the address queue 520 selected by the out-address bus 310 which carries the address of the switch output 150 to which the packet is being sent.
  • the output adapters 250 dequeue the addresses of packets stored in the shared memory to be transmitted to their output links 150, from their corresponding address queue 520 in the central controller 500, read the packet from the shared memory, serialize it and transport it over the link 150.
  • the address of the packet dequeued from the address queue 520 is placed on the read address bus 540, and at the same time recycled into the free cells list 510.
  • Bandwidth of the input bus 300 is equal to the combined bandwidth of all incoming links 100. So, no arbitration is required for the input bus 300. Instead, the bus is operated in a slotted manner, with each of the N input adapters accessing the bus in every :f.'N' sup th:ef. slot. In our current embodiment, a slot is a clock cycle.
  • the output bus 350 is operated in a similar manner, and the input and output adapters interact with the central controller only in the clock cycle in which they gain access to the input or output buses. Also shown in each input adapter 200 is a microprocessor 210 and in each output adapter 250, a microprocessor 260.
  • the control point 600 is a work station or PC class general purpose computer used to perform network management functions such as maintaining the database of topology and link states and link utilizations of the whole network, to allocate labels for new circuits being established, and to initialize and monitor the microprocessors 210 and 260. This too will be used advantageously in subsequent discussions to allocate and reclaim the memory used for storing the video content.
  • the shared buffer switch could be described as having separate input and output adapters with a microprocessor in each of them, and separate input and output buses.
  • these two adapters could be combined in a single card, with one microprocessors servicing both adapters, and a single bus with twice the bandwidth of the input and output buses could replace the input and output buses.
  • FIG. 4 illustrates the hardware modifications required in the shared buffer switch to give it the capability of storing video messages 920, and the capability of delivering a specified group of messages to a specified client 20 on receiving a control message 8 from the host 10 to do so.
  • the shared buffer 400 is augmented with video memory 700.
  • the shared buffer 400 and the video memory 700 share the input and output buses, the address bus and the write enable control.
  • the link field 940 and the pace control fields 950 are stored separately in a tag memory 810 which resides in the video dispatcher 800. See FIGS. 4 and 5.
  • the video dispatcher 800 is shown in some detail in FIG. 5. It can receive ATM cells comprising the control message 8 (FIGS. 6 and 7) directly from the host 10. These control messages are received by interface logic 870 from the input bus 300 when an input adapter 200 activates the signal 717.
  • Each control message 8 specifies the address of the first ATM cell in a group of video messages, time at which the first video message in the group should be delivered, number of video messages in the group, an output adapter address, and a stream number, as shown in FIG. 6, and requires the video dispatcher to request from the central controller 500 ''. the delivery of all ATM cells in the group to the specified output adapter 250'' by issuing request for one ATM cell at a time to the central controller 500''.
  • the request to read the ATM cells is enqueued in the dispatch queue 825 through multiplexor 820 by the scheduler 815 at the times specified in the control message.
  • the video dispatcher also receives similar instructions, without the encapsulation in ATM cells, from the micro processors 260 in the output adapters 250''. on bus 270 which are received by interface logic 871 in the video dispatcher.
  • the input and output adapters interact with the video dispatcher only in the cycle in which they access the input bus 300 or the output bus 350, therefore, there is no arbitration required on the buses 270, 271, and 717, whose use is discussed in detail later.
  • the video dispatcher has a FIFO dispatch queue 825 to store the read requests for ATM cells from the video memory which can not be enqueued in the central controller 500 immediately due to contention from the input adapters 200 for the address queues 520.
  • Each entry in the dispatch queue 825 has three fields, the output adapter address field 826 indicates which output adapter 250''. receives the cell read from the video memory 700 by this request, the stream-id field 827 specifies the video stream on the adapter specified in field 826 for which the cell is read, and the video memory address field 828 specifies the address in the video memory of the cell to be read.
  • the video dispatcher also monitors the address of all cells read from the video memory, and the output adapter and stream-id to which they belong, on the bus 540 in cell address monitor 850.
  • Line 581 is used to indicate that a cell was read from video memory. If the cell just read from the video memory is not the last cell of a message, then a new request is generated by incrementing the cell address in incrementor 855, and it is sent to the dispatch queue 825 through multiplexor 820. If the cell read from the video memory is the last cell of a message, then the link control field and the flow control field of that message are read from the tag memory and, together with the stream-id received from bus 540, are sent to the output adapter 250''. receiving this message. This information is sent on bus 271 and is intended to trigger the microprocessor 260 in the adapter to request a new message from the video memory.
  • the central controller 500 is modified (500'' of FIG. 4) as follows.
  • a multiplexer 720 is provided between the free cell list 510 and address queues 520.
  • One input of this multiplexer is the bus 530, carrying the address of the free cell in shared buffer 400 being written by some input adapter in the current cycle, which must be queued in the address queue 520 addressed by the out-address bus 310.
  • the other input is the bus 725 from the video dispatcher 800 carrying the address of a cell in the video memory and a stream identification number, both of which must be queued in the address queue 520 identified by bus 745.
  • One bit on line 315 of the out-address bus 310 indicates that the out-address is valid, and is used to give higher priority to bus 530 and controls the multiplexer 720 accordingly.
  • the bit 315 also controls the address multiplexer 740 in the central controller to use the out-address 310 when bus 530 is selected, and to use the address generated by video dispatcher on bus 745 when the content to be stored in the address queue 520 is selected from bus 725. It should be noted that in the current embodiment, the video dispatcher is blocked from writing into an address queue 520 even when contents of bus 530 are to be written into a different address queue 520. By providing more complex logic, this drawback can be avoided.
  • Addresses dequeued from address queue 520 are recycled into the free buffer list 510, only when the address are that of shared buffer 400.
  • Control logic 730 checks whether the address on bus 540 is in the range of addresses for shared buffers and enables only the address in this range to be enqueued in the free cell list 510. Since the addresses for the video memory 700 will have many more bits than those for the shared buffer 400 and are tagged with a video stream number, the address queues 520 and the bus 540 are expanded.
  • a load address bus 760 together with a control bit 761 is used.
  • the microprocessor 210 in a input adapter 200 will receive messages from the host to load a sequence of ATM cells contained in the message starting from an address in the video memory, the address being also specified in the message.
  • the ATM cells will be placed on the input bus 300, and the address in video memory where they should be stored is placed on the load address bus 760, and the control bit 761 is activated.
  • the control bit 761 controls the multiplexer 710 in the central controller 500'', allowing the write address 532 for the video memory to be selected from the load address bus 760 rather than the free cell list on bus 530.
  • the control bit 315 is inactive allowing video dispatcher access to the address queue 520.
  • the general purpose computer 600'' used as control point in the shared buffer switch, also functions as the video storage manager to allocate and reclaim video storage.
  • the host computer or application server interacts with the video storage manager to request a block of free video memory or to return a block of video memory.
  • the video storage manager allocates a block of video memory to a host and notifies the host with the address range for that block, the host can write directly into the video memory allocated to it, as explained in the preceding paragraph, without further involvement from the video storage manager.
  • the command from the host to write into the video memory 700 can be sent directly to the microprocessor 210, or indirectly through the control point processor 600'' which will then forward the command to the microprocessor 210.
  • the video storage manager is a general purpose computer, the communication between it and the host can take place using any of the standard reliable transport protocols, and the desired security and authentication measures can be used.
  • the messages from the host to the microprocessors 210 in the input adapters 200 can also be delivered on secure links with the distribution of keys being handled by the video storage manager and the decryption of messages being performed in the microprocessors themselves.
  • the two common types of messages sent from the host to the microprocessor 210 are to load video memory and to send commands to video dispatcher. If these command messages contain appropriate information to send an acknowledgement back, the microprocessor 210 can be programmed to send an acknowledgement back to the host. Fragmentation in the video memory cam be handled without requiring compaction by using the buddy system method proposed for allocating main memory in multiprogrammed computers.
  • control message 8 sent from the host for dispatching a group of video messages is intercepted by the input adapter 200, which then forwards this command to the video dispatcher 800.
  • the video dispatcher submits a separate request to the central controller to read the ATM cell and deliver it to the correct output adapter.
  • the output adapters have to fill in the VPI/VCI fields in the headers of the ATM cells read from the video memory before these cells are sent out on the output link 150. See below.
  • the video dispatcher receives the stream-id for this cell from the bus 540 and forwards the stream-id to that output adapter on bus 271.
  • Flow control and link fields 940 and 950 are also sent along with the stream-id when the ATM cell being delivered to the output adapter is the last cell of a video message.
  • the output adapter completes the header of the ATM cell received at the same time from the video memory as described below.
  • the output adapter can generate an acknowledgement back to the host to indicate successful transfer of video messages.
  • this acknowledgement must be generated in hardware using return address and other relevant information from the stream control table, unless the number of ATM cells in a group of messages is sufficiently large, and therefore, frequency of acknowledgements low enough to be handled by the microprocessor 260.
  • the shared buffer 400 is implemented Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) modules.
  • SRAM Static Random Access Memory
  • video memory 700 is implemented from Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) modules 710, as shown in FIG. 8.
  • DRAM Dynamic Random Access Memory
  • tristate drivers 711 and 712 are used to connect the data ports of the DRAM modules to the input bus 300 and the output bus 350.
  • the multiplexor 420 is used to multiplex the read address 540 and the write address 532 on the address bus 425.
  • a write enable signal 585 controls the multiplexor 420 and also provides the write enable control for SRAM and DRAM modules.
  • the DRAM controller 750 uses the address received from address bus 425 to generate the address signals and chip select signals for each DRAM module. In addition, it generates the row address select, and column address select signals for the DRAM modules and provides the memory refresh signals.
  • the data access time for SRAM is much shorter than that for DRAM.
  • the addresses provided to the SRAM are delayed in the delay element 410 to enforce equal access time for both the SRAM and the DRAM and thus to avoid contention for the output bus 350. If a request to access a DRAM module can not be accepted immediately, due to that DRAM module being busy with a previous request, a request accepted signal 581 is turned off to prevent the address from being dequeued from the address queue 520, and to signal to the video dispatcher 800 that no video packet is being sent to the output adapters.
  • the ATM cells in the video memory are interleaved across the DRAM modules.
  • the high level architecture of the modified output adapter 250'' is shown in FIG. 9.
  • ATM cells are received from the shared buffer or video memory on the output bus 350, once every N clock cycles, where N is the number of output adapters.
  • Logic block 282 serializes the ATM cell received on output bus 350 on to a 32 bit wide or 16 bit wide bus 283.
  • Logic block 284 monitors bus 271, driven by the video dispatcher 800, if the ATM cell on bus 283 is coming from the shared buffer 400 in which case it is passed unmodified through the multiplexor 286 to output link interface logic 288, which finally transmits the cell on the output link 150.
  • bus 271 contains a stream-id for that cell.
  • the stream-id is placed on bus 285 by the logic block 284 to index into the stream control table 280 to retrieve the header information for the ATM cell.
  • This header information is transferred via bus 289 to multiplexor 286 which substitutes it in the ATM cell being received on bus 283.
  • Control signal 287 generated by logic block 284 causes the substitution of the header to occur.
  • the logic block 284 also scans the header of each ATM cell received from the shared buffer 400, to determine if the ATM cell is addressed to the microprocessor 260 on the output adapter, in which case the cell is not transferred to the link interface logic 288, but is sent to the microprocessor 260 instead.
  • This is the primary mechanism for the host 10 to communicate with the microprocessor 260 to manage the stream control table 280.
  • Two key commands sent by the host to microprocessor 260 are to create a new entry into the stream control table, and to delete an entry from the stream control table (see FIG. 7).
  • the microprocessor 260 uses local memory 261 to store its program and data, and interacts with logic block 284 to effect changes in the stream control table.
  • the host can send commands to manage the stream control table either directly to the microprocessor 260, or through the control point processor 600.
  • the switch must deliver multiple video messages to a client in response to each control message received from the host.
  • One way of ascertaining was to have the host request the delivery of multiple video messages in a single control message as discussed earlier.
  • Another way is to specify a message count, or stopping time, or a stopping link pointer value for each stream in the steam control table.
  • the host starts the stream by by sending a control message to the video dispatcher, specifying the delivery of first video message.
  • the message count for the stream stored in the stream control table is decremented, or if the stopping time for the stream is specified instead then the stopping time is compared with the delivery time of the, or the stopping link pointer valve is compared with the link field received on bus 271. If the stopping condition is met, an appropriate acknowledgement is generated and sent to the host.
  • the link field and the flow control field are used to generate a new request to read the next video message for that stream, and the new request is sent to the video dispatcher on bus 270.
  • the host upon receiving the acknowledgement of the stopping condition can continue the delivery of the video stream by sending a command to the output adapter to reset the stopping condition in the stream control table, and sending a control message to the video dispatcher to send the video message which follows the last message delivered for that stream.
  • the first method where the host requests multiple video messages in the control message sent directly to the video dispatcher, allows the short video streams to have a very low latency startup, as compared to the second approach where the startup latency is large because the host has to first setup the correct stopping condition in the stream control table before it can initiate the delivery of video messages to the client.
  • the disadvantage of the first approach is that once the host sends a control message to the switch to send a specified number of video messages to a client, the host cannot interrupt the switch from completing the delivery of all the video messages, nor can it change the playback mode before all the video messages have been delivered.
  • the host can modify the stream control table any time to change the playback mode, stopping condition, or to specify a new starting point.
  • the first approach should be preferred if the application requires the host to interact with the switch frequently, because this approach offers low overhead and stream startup latency.
  • the second approach should be preferred when the interaction between the host and the switch are infrequent because it allows the host to retain control over the transfer of video messages.
  • the compressed frames are of three types, Intra coded, Predictive coded, and Bidirectionally predictive coded.
  • Intra coded frames I-frames
  • Predictively coded frames P-frames
  • B-frames bidirectionally predictively coded
  • FIG. 13a shows a sequence of frames (pictures) in a video stream. This is the order in which the frames are captured and displayed, and we will refer to this order as the presentation order. However, one can readily see that the second frame which is a B-frame cannot be decoded until the 5th frame, which is the first P-frame or I-frame following this B-frame is decoded. Thus, the order in which the frames of a video stream are decoded, referred to as the decode order, is different than the presentation order.
  • the arrows illustrate the decode order for the frames listed in presentation order from left to right.
  • the compressed picture frames in a video stream are stored in the decode order and thus sent to the client in decode order. In the video messages accessed by the forward links 941, the compressed picture frames appear in decode order.
  • the compressed picture frames shown in FIG. 13c are sent to the client and decoded in the order shown by the backward link 942, and displayed by the client in the right to left sequence.
  • the compressed video frames will appear in the decode order for playing the video backwards as shown in FIG. 13c. Since video messages are of fixed size, the start and end of picture frames will not be aligned with the video message boundaries. Thus, whenever video messages are accessed in a sequence differing from the regular playback mode, as is the case for forward play, fast forward and rewind, the first and last video messages of a video frame will contain extraneous data. In this case either the client must be programmed to discard the extraneous data, or stuffing bytes must be used in the video message to align the picture frame boundaries with the video messages.
  • Backward links are not stored with video messages which do not contain the ending of a frame because for these frames the forward link and backward link are identical.
  • Link 943 (see FIG. 13d) links the last video message containing data of an I-frame to the first video message containing data of the next I-frame.
  • link 943 links the last video message containing data of an I-frame to the first video message containing data of the next I-frame.
  • Links 945 and 946 are used to support the rewind function in a similar manner at two different speeds.
  • links 943 and 945 are present in video messages which contain the end of an I-frame
  • 944 and 946 are present in video messages which contain the end of an I-frame or P-frame.
  • links 943 and 944 have their own flow control fields which can be shard by links 944 and 946 respectively.
  • each video message has a different number of link fields, it would be wasteful to provide storage for the maximum possible number of link fields in each video message.
  • the link fields together with the flow control fields are stored compactly in the tag storage in the video dispatcher and fixed size pointers pointing to the links of each video message are stored in a Tag-pointer storage added to the video dispatcher.
  • the address of the video message is used to get a pointer from the Tag-pointer storage which in turn is used to access the links for that video message from the Tag storage.
  • Each entry of the tag pointer storage has a mask entry, in addition to the pointer to the tag storage. The mask indicates which links are present.
  • an extra field is added to the control message sent from the host to the video dispatcher. This field specifies the playback mode.
  • the playback mode information is carried along with the ATM cell address (and stream-id) on buses 725 and 540, and is stored with the ATM cell address in queues 540.
  • FIG. 10 illustrates the general method of integrating semiconductor memory to such switches.
  • FIG. 10A shows a generic switch 16 with input links, and output queues 1250 in addition to the switch hardware 1100 and its control 1150.
  • FIG. 10B shows that video memory 700 can be added to this switch by connecting it directly to the output queues through the video dispatchers.
  • the video data is now sent by the video dispatcher to the output adapter, and it goes to the output adapter on a different bus than the regular network traffic.
  • the video memory manager 1600 now receives the video data too, and writes it into the video memory 700.
  • the details of operation are quite similar to the preferred embodiment based on the shared buffer switch.
  • Video storage 700''. is now multiported with the ports 800'' connected to the inputs of the switch.
  • Input adapters are modified to incorporate video dispatch logic.
  • Each of the modified input adapters 200'' has the stream control table and handles the video dispatch function for the video streams accessed through it.
  • Output adapters 250'' are the same as 250 except for the fact that the interface to the switch hardware is no longer a wide shared bus. This approach has the disadvantage of requiring more switching hardware for supporting the same video throughput, because video moves through both input and output adapters.
  • the switch could possibly have fewer input adapters, because traffic is predominantly video data integrated directly to the output adapters.
  • traffic is predominantly video data integrated directly to the output adapters.
  • the saving is not only the hardware of the input adapters, but also from the use of smaller switch is possible.
  • a small semiconductor buffer 795 prefetches the section of the video currently being accessed by the active video streams. This prefetching can be scheduled accurately because accesses to the video data are predominantly sequential. To the rest of the system, the buffer appears to be complete source of all video content.
  • FIG. 12 illustrates this approach.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Multimedia (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)
  • Two-Way Televisions, Distribution Of Moving Picture Or The Like (AREA)
  • Computer And Data Communications (AREA)
  • Television Signal Processing For Recording (AREA)
  • Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)
EP95480100A 1994-08-23 1995-07-24 Serveur à base de mémoire à semi-conducteur pour fournir information multimedia sur démande dans un réseau de grande extension Expired - Lifetime EP0698982B1 (fr)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US29467394A 1994-08-23 1994-08-23
US294673 1994-08-23

Publications (3)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0698982A2 true EP0698982A2 (fr) 1996-02-28
EP0698982A3 EP0698982A3 (fr) 1998-04-15
EP0698982B1 EP0698982B1 (fr) 2003-03-19

Family

ID=23134436

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP95480100A Expired - Lifetime EP0698982B1 (fr) 1994-08-23 1995-07-24 Serveur à base de mémoire à semi-conducteur pour fournir information multimedia sur démande dans un réseau de grande extension

Country Status (10)

Country Link
US (1) US5758085A (fr)
EP (1) EP0698982B1 (fr)
JP (1) JP3730686B2 (fr)
KR (1) KR100209834B1 (fr)
CN (1) CN1134934C (fr)
AT (1) ATE235128T1 (fr)
BR (1) BR9503452A (fr)
CA (1) CA2149480C (fr)
DE (1) DE69529948T2 (fr)
TW (1) TW252248B (fr)

Cited By (13)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO1999022303A1 (fr) * 1997-10-24 1999-05-06 Sony Electronics Inc. Procede et appareil de detection et de commande de leur sens de transmission dans un noeud seriel ieee 1394 de bus
US6073160A (en) * 1996-12-18 2000-06-06 Xerox Corporation Document communications controller
WO2002086902A1 (fr) * 2001-04-19 2002-10-31 Snell & Wilcox Limited Donnees video a modules de memoire connectes en serie a un chemin de donnees unidirectionnel
EP1444579A1 (fr) * 2001-11-14 2004-08-11 Thomson Licensing S.A. Systeme de mise en memoire cache video atm permettant une utilisation efficace de la largeur de bande pour des applications video a la demande
WO2006028348A1 (fr) * 2004-09-10 2006-03-16 Interactive Tv Media Group Procede et systeme permettant d'appliquer un domaine de canal
US7027768B2 (en) 2001-10-12 2006-04-11 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Method and systems using a set-top box and communicating between a remote data network and a wireless communication network
EP1659755A1 (fr) * 2004-11-22 2006-05-24 Lucent Technologies Inc. Méthode et appareil pour caching pre-paquetisé pour des serveurs de réseau
GB2441576A (en) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-12 Edgeware Ab Video server using FPGA streamers with control GPU and memory wherein video data segments are chained with play, FF and rewind pointers
GB2441577A (en) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-12 Edgeware Ab Video server using FPGA streamers with control GPU and memory wherein video data segments are chained with play, FF and rewind pointers
GB2441575A (en) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-12 Edgeware Ab Video server using FPGA streamers with control GPU and memory wherein video data segments are chained with play, FF and rewind pointers
GB2449068A (en) * 2007-05-08 2008-11-12 Edgeware Ab Data streaming using stored control data
US8000647B2 (en) 2002-10-11 2011-08-16 At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. Method using a set-top box and communicating between a remote data network and a wireless communication network
US8826345B2 (en) 2006-09-08 2014-09-02 Edgeware Ab Method and an apparatus for data streaming

Families Citing this family (114)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5991301A (en) * 1994-05-05 1999-11-23 Sprint Communications Co. L.P. Broadband telecommunications system
US5793980A (en) * 1994-11-30 1998-08-11 Realnetworks, Inc. Audio-on-demand communication system
US7349976B1 (en) 1994-11-30 2008-03-25 Realnetworks, Inc. Audio-on-demand communication system
US5541918A (en) * 1995-01-31 1996-07-30 Fore Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for manipulating an ATM cell
US5991811A (en) * 1995-09-04 1999-11-23 Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba Information transmission system utilizing both real-time data transmitted in a normal-in-time direction and in a retrospective-in-time direction
US6016535A (en) * 1995-10-11 2000-01-18 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method for dynamically and efficiently caching objects by subdividing cache memory blocks into equally-sized sub-blocks
US6437803B1 (en) 1998-05-29 2002-08-20 Citrix Systems, Inc. System and method for combining local and remote windows into a single desktop environment
US6088515A (en) 1995-11-13 2000-07-11 Citrix Systems Inc Method and apparatus for making a hypermedium interactive
US6950991B2 (en) * 1995-11-13 2005-09-27 Citrix Systems, Inc. Interacting with software applications displayed in a web page
US7555529B2 (en) 1995-11-13 2009-06-30 Citrix Systems, Inc. Interacting with software applications displayed in a web page
CA2196622C (fr) * 1996-02-06 2001-10-16 Hiroshi Jinzenji Systeme de distribution de donnees dans un reseau
JP3258236B2 (ja) * 1996-05-28 2002-02-18 株式会社日立製作所 マルチメディア情報転送システム
US6108655A (en) * 1996-07-19 2000-08-22 Cisco Technology, Inc. Method and apparatus for transmitting images and other objects over a computer network system
EP1890483A3 (fr) * 1996-07-23 2011-07-06 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha Dispositif et méthode de commande de caméra
JP3202606B2 (ja) 1996-07-23 2001-08-27 キヤノン株式会社 撮像サーバ及びその方法及び媒体
JP3862321B2 (ja) * 1996-07-23 2006-12-27 キヤノン株式会社 サーバ及びその制御方法
KR100200625B1 (ko) * 1996-09-30 1999-06-15 윤종용 텔레비젼을 이용한 음성 및 문자 사서함 열람장치 및 방법
US6055560A (en) * 1996-11-08 2000-04-25 International Business Machines Corporation System and method to provide interactivity for a networked video server
GB2323946B (en) * 1997-04-04 2002-04-17 Sony Uk Ltd Database accessing method and apparatus
US6178170B1 (en) * 1997-05-13 2001-01-23 Sprint Communications Company, L. P. System and method for transporting a call
US5991912A (en) * 1997-05-15 1999-11-23 Next Level Communications Digital video transport error handling in cell based communications systems
EP1439664B1 (fr) * 1997-06-25 2007-09-12 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Méthode et dispositif pour contrôler des équipements dans un réseau de domestique
US6199126B1 (en) * 1997-09-23 2001-03-06 International Business Machines Corporation Processor transparent on-the-fly instruction stream decompression
US6253207B1 (en) * 1997-09-25 2001-06-26 Lucent Technologies Inc. Method and apparatus for transporting multimedia information over heterogeneous wide area networks
US6055543A (en) * 1997-11-21 2000-04-25 Verano File wrapper containing cataloging information for content searching across multiple platforms
US6466574B1 (en) * 1998-06-05 2002-10-15 International Business Machines Corporation Quality of service improvement of internet real-time media transmission by transmitting redundant voice/media frames
US6148414A (en) 1998-09-24 2000-11-14 Seek Systems, Inc. Methods and systems for implementing shared disk array management functions
US6526452B1 (en) 1998-11-17 2003-02-25 Cisco Technology, Inc. Methods and apparatus for providing interfaces for mixed topology data switching system
US6665673B1 (en) 1998-11-17 2003-12-16 Cisco Technology, Inc. Channel communication system
US6463065B1 (en) 1998-11-17 2002-10-08 Cisco Technology, Inc. Mixed topology data switching system
US6484207B1 (en) 1998-11-17 2002-11-19 Cisco Technology, Inc. Switching system having interconnects dedicated to store and retrieve data including management of dedicated memory segments allocated when a general memory is depleted
US6928469B1 (en) * 1998-12-29 2005-08-09 Citrix Systems, Inc. Apparatus and method for determining a program neighborhood for a client node in a client-server network using markup language techniques
US6330621B1 (en) 1999-01-15 2001-12-11 Storage Technology Corporation Intelligent data storage manager
US7266706B2 (en) * 1999-03-03 2007-09-04 Yottayotta, Inc. Methods and systems for implementing shared disk array management functions
US6895088B1 (en) * 1999-05-21 2005-05-17 Sprint Communications Company L.P. System and method for controlling a call processing system
SE521181C2 (sv) * 1999-07-01 2003-10-07 Telia Ab Förfarande och system för policystyrd distribution av strömmande media i ett IP-nät
JP2003510694A (ja) 1999-09-20 2003-03-18 クインタイルズ トランスナショナル コーポレイション 匿名化された健康管理情報を分析するためのシステム及び方法
US6732113B1 (en) * 1999-09-20 2004-05-04 Verispan, L.L.C. System and method for generating de-identified health care data
US6842841B1 (en) 1999-09-21 2005-01-11 Storage Technology Corporation Method and system for dynamically selecting tape drives to connect with host computers
US8165146B1 (en) 1999-10-28 2012-04-24 Lightwaves Systems Inc. System and method for storing/caching, searching for, and accessing data
GB2359209A (en) * 2000-02-09 2001-08-15 Motorola Ltd Apparatus and methods for video distribution via networks
KR20020087053A (ko) * 2000-02-14 2002-11-21 톰슨 라이센싱 소시에떼 아노님 수 개의 패킷에 걸쳐 분할된 메시지를 송신하는 방법
EP1301865A4 (fr) * 2000-03-22 2009-04-01 Yotta Yotta Inc Procede et systeme permettant de mettre a disposition des informations multimedia a la demande, par l'intermediaire de reseaux longue distance
US6789112B1 (en) 2000-05-08 2004-09-07 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for administering a server having a subsystem in communication with an event channel
US6785713B1 (en) 2000-05-08 2004-08-31 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for communicating among a network of servers utilizing a transport mechanism
US6922724B1 (en) 2000-05-08 2005-07-26 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for managing server load
US6785726B1 (en) 2000-05-08 2004-08-31 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for delivering local and remote server events in a similar fashion
US6591322B1 (en) * 2000-08-01 2003-07-08 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Method and apparatus for connecting single master devices to a multimaster wired-and bus environment
US20020038456A1 (en) * 2000-09-22 2002-03-28 Hansen Michael W. Method and system for the automatic production and distribution of media content using the internet
JP2002100114A (ja) * 2000-09-25 2002-04-05 Canon Inc 再生装置、再生方法、伝送装置、伝送方法及び記憶媒体
JP2002100113A (ja) * 2000-09-25 2002-04-05 Canon Inc 再生装置、再生方法、伝送装置、伝送方法及び記憶媒体
US20020107971A1 (en) * 2000-11-07 2002-08-08 Bailey Brian W. Network transport accelerator
US7213075B2 (en) * 2000-12-15 2007-05-01 International Business Machines Corporation Application server and streaming server streaming multimedia file in a client specific format
WO2002054708A2 (fr) * 2001-01-02 2002-07-11 Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network, Inc. Systeme et procede de remise, securisee et equilibree au niveau de la charge, de donnees et de contenus de supports dans un environnement de traitement reparti
GB2371726B (en) 2001-01-27 2005-08-17 Mitel Corp Transport protocols for application platforms over network portals
US7545868B2 (en) * 2001-03-20 2009-06-09 Lightwaves Systems, Inc. High bandwidth data transport system
US8766773B2 (en) * 2001-03-20 2014-07-01 Lightwaves Systems, Inc. Ultra wideband radio frequency identification system, method, and apparatus
US8270452B2 (en) * 2002-04-30 2012-09-18 Lightwaves Systems, Inc. Method and apparatus for multi-band UWB communications
JP2003030018A (ja) * 2001-07-13 2003-01-31 Sony Corp データ通信装置および方法、データ通信システム、情報処理装置および方法、記録媒体、並びにプログラム
US7774492B2 (en) * 2001-07-26 2010-08-10 Citrix Systems, Inc. System, method and computer program product to maximize server throughput while avoiding server overload by controlling the rate of establishing server-side net work connections
US7308001B2 (en) * 2001-11-16 2007-12-11 Computer Network Technology Corporation Fibre channel frame batching for IP transmission
US8811429B2 (en) * 2002-02-19 2014-08-19 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. Batching and compression for IP transmission
US7027450B2 (en) * 2002-02-19 2006-04-11 Computer Network Technology Corporation Frame batching and compression for IP transmission
US8135843B2 (en) * 2002-03-22 2012-03-13 Citrix Systems, Inc. Methods and systems for providing access to an application
US7542471B2 (en) * 2002-10-30 2009-06-02 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method of determining path maximum transmission unit
US8270423B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2012-09-18 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods of using packet boundaries for reduction in timeout prevention
US7630305B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2009-12-08 Orbital Data Corporation TCP selective acknowledgements for communicating delivered and missed data packets
US8233392B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2012-07-31 Citrix Systems, Inc. Transaction boundary detection for reduction in timeout penalties
US7616638B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2009-11-10 Orbital Data Corporation Wavefront detection and disambiguation of acknowledgments
US20040223054A1 (en) * 2003-05-06 2004-11-11 Rotholtz Ben Aaron Multi-purpose video surveillance
US7684432B2 (en) * 2003-05-15 2010-03-23 At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. Methods of providing data services over data networks and related data networks, data service providers, routing gateways and computer program products
US7430187B2 (en) * 2003-05-15 2008-09-30 At&T Intellectual Property I, Lp Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing different quality of service/bandwidth allocation to different susbscribers for interactive gaming
WO2004107132A2 (fr) * 2003-05-28 2004-12-09 Caymas Systems, Inc. Procede, systeme et logiciel de codage d'etat de ressources internet
US8238241B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2012-08-07 Citrix Systems, Inc. Automatic detection and window virtualization for flow control
US8432800B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2013-04-30 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for stochastic-based quality of service
US8437284B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2013-05-07 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for additional retransmissions of dropped packets
US7656799B2 (en) 2003-07-29 2010-02-02 Citrix Systems, Inc. Flow control system architecture
WO2005015919A2 (fr) * 2003-08-06 2005-02-17 Motorola, Inc. , A Corporation Of The State Of Delaware Methode et appareil pour permettre une authentification de fournisseur de contenu
US7978716B2 (en) 2003-11-24 2011-07-12 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for providing a VPN solution
US20050177616A1 (en) * 2003-12-19 2005-08-11 N2 Broadband, Inc. Method and system for distributing services in a digital asset environment
CN1700643B (zh) * 2004-05-20 2014-07-16 深圳市朗科科技股份有限公司 数据交换装置及基于网络的数据交换方法
US7757074B2 (en) 2004-06-30 2010-07-13 Citrix Application Networking, Llc System and method for establishing a virtual private network
US8739274B2 (en) 2004-06-30 2014-05-27 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method and device for performing integrated caching in a data communication network
US8495305B2 (en) 2004-06-30 2013-07-23 Citrix Systems, Inc. Method and device for performing caching of dynamically generated objects in a data communication network
WO2006012610A2 (fr) 2004-07-23 2006-02-02 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systemes et procedes d'optimisation des communications entre des noeuds de reseaux
AU2005266945A1 (en) 2004-07-23 2006-02-02 Citrix Systems, Inc. A method and systems for securing remote access to private networks
US7818614B2 (en) * 2004-10-25 2010-10-19 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. System and method for reintroducing a processor module to an operating system after lockstep recovery
US8706877B2 (en) 2004-12-30 2014-04-22 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for providing client-side dynamic redirection to bypass an intermediary
US8954595B2 (en) 2004-12-30 2015-02-10 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for providing client-side accelerated access to remote applications via TCP buffering
US8700695B2 (en) 2004-12-30 2014-04-15 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for providing client-side accelerated access to remote applications via TCP pooling
US8549149B2 (en) 2004-12-30 2013-10-01 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for providing client-side accelerated access to remote applications via TCP multiplexing
US7810089B2 (en) * 2004-12-30 2010-10-05 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods for automatic installation and execution of a client-side acceleration program
US8255456B2 (en) * 2005-12-30 2012-08-28 Citrix Systems, Inc. System and method for performing flash caching of dynamically generated objects in a data communication network
EP1842354B1 (fr) 2005-01-24 2014-11-05 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systemes et procedes pour mettre en memoire cache des objets produits dynamiquement dans un reseau
JP2006252019A (ja) * 2005-03-09 2006-09-21 Hitachi Ltd ストレージネットワークシステム
DE602006014192D1 (de) * 2005-12-02 2010-06-17 Citrix Systems Inc Uthentifizierungsbescheinigungen von einem proxy-server für eine virtualisierte berechnungsumgebung zum zugriff auf eine remote-ressource
US8301839B2 (en) 2005-12-30 2012-10-30 Citrix Systems, Inc. System and method for performing granular invalidation of cached dynamically generated objects in a data communication network
US7921184B2 (en) * 2005-12-30 2011-04-05 Citrix Systems, Inc. System and method for performing flash crowd caching of dynamically generated objects in a data communication network
US8244883B2 (en) 2006-08-03 2012-08-14 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods of for providing multi-mode transport layer compression
US9355273B2 (en) * 2006-12-18 2016-05-31 Bank Of America, N.A., As Collateral Agent System and method for the protection and de-identification of health care data
CN101207994A (zh) 2006-12-19 2008-06-25 鸿富锦精密工业（深圳）有限公司 铰链结构
US7706266B2 (en) * 2007-03-12 2010-04-27 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systems and methods of providing proxy-based quality of service
EP1981284B1 (fr) * 2007-04-12 2020-08-26 ADTRAN GmbH Procédé de lecture de données et dispositif
US9578290B2 (en) * 2007-08-09 2017-02-21 Gvbb Holdings S.A.R.L. Video data reproduction system
WO2010002411A1 (fr) 2008-07-03 2010-01-07 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Serveur de mémoire
WO2010049440A1 (fr) * 2008-10-29 2010-05-06 Edgeware Ab Procédé et appareil pour un enregistrement de données et une diffusion en flux
US20100114607A1 (en) * 2008-11-04 2010-05-06 Sdi Health Llc Method and system for providing reports and segmentation of physician activities
US9141758B2 (en) * 2009-02-20 2015-09-22 Ims Health Incorporated System and method for encrypting provider identifiers on medical service claim transactions
WO2010151496A1 (fr) * 2009-06-22 2010-12-29 Citrix Systems, Inc. Systèmes et procédés de limitation de flux de plate-forme
US8265050B2 (en) * 2009-08-07 2012-09-11 Time Warner Cable, Inc. System and method for sharing a payload among mobile devices in a wireless network
EP2761819B1 (fr) * 2011-09-27 2021-01-06 InterDigital Madison Patent Holdings Interfaces utilisateurs pour des systèmes de distribution de contenu
US9002991B2 (en) 2013-04-06 2015-04-07 Miranda Technologies Partnership System and methods for cloud-based media play out
US10834065B1 (en) 2015-03-31 2020-11-10 F5 Networks, Inc. Methods for SSL protected NTLM re-authentication and devices thereof
US10404698B1 (en) 2016-01-15 2019-09-03 F5 Networks, Inc. Methods for adaptive organization of web application access points in webtops and devices thereof

Citations (7)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4897781A (en) 1987-02-13 1990-01-30 International Business Machines Corporation System and method for using cached data at a local node after re-opening a file at a remote node in a distributed networking environment
US5005122A (en) 1987-09-08 1991-04-02 Digital Equipment Corporation Arrangement with cooperating management server node and network service node
US5093718A (en) 1990-09-28 1992-03-03 Inteletext Systems, Inc. Interactive home information system
US5218697A (en) 1990-04-18 1993-06-08 Microsoft Corporation Method and system for networking computers having varying file architectures
US5220420A (en) 1990-09-28 1993-06-15 Inteletext Systems, Inc. Interactive home information system for distributing compressed television programming
US5287507A (en) 1992-03-27 1994-02-15 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Method and apparatus for portable object handles that use local caches
US5287461A (en) 1991-10-31 1994-02-15 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Method and apparatus for remotely accessing a plurality of server consoles

Family Cites Families (24)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4236250A (en) * 1979-05-21 1980-11-25 Rockwell International Corporation Multiline switch
JPS60219848A (ja) * 1984-04-17 1985-11-02 Fujitsu Ltd ビデオテツクス端末システム
JPS63151240A (ja) * 1986-12-16 1988-06-23 Fujitsu Ltd ビデオ番組分配方式
GB8821410D0 (en) * 1988-09-13 1988-10-12 Int Computers Ltd Data processing system
JP2748452B2 (ja) * 1988-11-15 1998-05-06 日本電気株式会社 ダウンラインロード方式
JPH02161844A (ja) * 1988-12-14 1990-06-21 Hitachi Ltd 情報配布サービス方式
US5477541A (en) * 1989-09-29 1995-12-19 White; Richard E. Addressing technique for storing and referencing packet data
US5115426A (en) * 1990-03-30 1992-05-19 At&T Bell Laboratories Broadband isdn packet switching arrangements
JP3073248B2 (ja) * 1991-03-19 2000-08-07 富士通株式会社 ポイント対マルチポイント接続方式
JPH0514342A (ja) * 1991-07-02 1993-01-22 Hitachi Ltd パケツト同報通信方式
US5490252A (en) * 1992-09-30 1996-02-06 Bay Networks Group, Inc. System having central processor for transmitting generic packets to another processor to be altered and transmitting altered packets back to central processor for routing
US5442389A (en) * 1992-12-28 1995-08-15 At&T Corp. Program server for interactive television system
US5440334A (en) * 1993-02-01 1995-08-08 Explore Technology, Inc. Broadcast video burst transmission cyclic distribution apparatus and method
JPH06284148A (ja) * 1993-03-30 1994-10-07 Hitachi Ltd 動画通信制御方法及び通信制御装置
US5539449A (en) * 1993-05-03 1996-07-23 At&T Corp. Integrated television services system
US5442390A (en) * 1993-07-07 1995-08-15 Digital Equipment Corporation Video on demand with memory accessing and or like functions
DE4328862A1 (de) * 1993-08-27 1995-03-02 Sel Alcatel Ag Verfahren und Vorrichtung zum Zwischenspeichern von Datenpaketen sowie Vermittlungsstelle mit einer solchen Vorrichtung
US5491800A (en) * 1993-12-20 1996-02-13 Taligent, Inc. Object-oriented remote procedure call networking system
US5485455A (en) * 1994-01-28 1996-01-16 Cabletron Systems, Inc. Network having secure fast packet switching and guaranteed quality of service
US5508940A (en) * 1994-02-14 1996-04-16 Sony Corporation Of Japan And Sony Electronics, Inc. Random access audio/video processor with multiple outputs
US5488411A (en) * 1994-03-14 1996-01-30 Multimedia Systems Corporation Interactive system for a closed cable network
US5467345A (en) * 1994-05-31 1995-11-14 Motorola, Inc. Packet routing system and method therefor
US5583561A (en) * 1994-06-07 1996-12-10 Unisys Corporation Multi-cast digital video data server using synchronization groups
US5461611A (en) * 1994-06-07 1995-10-24 International Business Machines Corporation Quality of service management for source routing multimedia packet networks

Patent Citations (7)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4897781A (en) 1987-02-13 1990-01-30 International Business Machines Corporation System and method for using cached data at a local node after re-opening a file at a remote node in a distributed networking environment
US5005122A (en) 1987-09-08 1991-04-02 Digital Equipment Corporation Arrangement with cooperating management server node and network service node
US5218697A (en) 1990-04-18 1993-06-08 Microsoft Corporation Method and system for networking computers having varying file architectures
US5093718A (en) 1990-09-28 1992-03-03 Inteletext Systems, Inc. Interactive home information system
US5220420A (en) 1990-09-28 1993-06-15 Inteletext Systems, Inc. Interactive home information system for distributing compressed television programming
US5287461A (en) 1991-10-31 1994-02-15 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Method and apparatus for remotely accessing a plurality of server consoles
US5287507A (en) 1992-03-27 1994-02-15 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Method and apparatus for portable object handles that use local caches

Non-Patent Citations (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Title
"IS&T/SPIE symposium on Electronic Imaging Science and Technology, San Jose, CA", 1994, article D. KANDLUR, M.S. CHEN, Z.Y. SHAE: "Design of a multimedia storage server"
"Proc. IEEE COMPCON 1993, San Francisco, CA", 1993, article R. HASKIN: "The Shark continuous media file server"
A. DAN, D. SITARAM: "Buffer management policy for an on-demand video server", IBM RESEARCH REPORT, no. 19347
A. DAN, D. SITARAM: "Scheduling policy for an on-demand video server with batching", IBM RESEARCH REPORT, no. 19381
CRAIG PARTRIDGE: "Gigabit Networking", October 1993, ADDISON WESLEY PUBLISHING CO., READING, MASS., ISBN: 0-201-56333-9
H.M. VIN, P.V. RANGAN: "Designing a multiuser HDTV storage server", IEEE JOUR. ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS, vol. 11, no. 1, January 1993 (1993-01-01), pages 153 - 164, XP000378007, DOI: doi:10.1109/49.210554
M.J. BACH: "The design of the Unix operating system", 1986, PRENTICE HALL INC., ENGLEWOODS CLIFFS, NJ, ISBN: 0132017997025
W. ROSENBERRY ET AL.: "Understanding DCE", September 1992, O'REILLY AND ASSOCIATES INC., SEBASTOPOL, CA, ISBN: 1-56592-005-8

Cited By (21)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US6073160A (en) * 1996-12-18 2000-06-06 Xerox Corporation Document communications controller
EP1193612A3 (fr) * 1997-10-24 2005-09-14 Sony Electronics Inc. Gestion de paquets de bus dans un noeud d'une structure de bus
WO1999022303A1 (fr) * 1997-10-24 1999-05-06 Sony Electronics Inc. Procede et appareil de detection et de commande de leur sens de transmission dans un noeud seriel ieee 1394 de bus
WO2002086902A1 (fr) * 2001-04-19 2002-10-31 Snell & Wilcox Limited Donnees video a modules de memoire connectes en serie a un chemin de donnees unidirectionnel
US7027768B2 (en) 2001-10-12 2006-04-11 Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation Method and systems using a set-top box and communicating between a remote data network and a wireless communication network
US7363002B2 (en) 2001-10-12 2008-04-22 At&T Delaware Intellectual Property, Inc. Method using a set-top box communicating between a remote data network and a wireless communication network
EP1444579A4 (fr) * 2001-11-14 2005-10-05 Systeme de mise en memoire cache video atm permettant une utilisation efficace de la largeur de bande pour des applications video a la demande
EP1444579A1 (fr) * 2001-11-14 2004-08-11 Thomson Licensing S.A. Systeme de mise en memoire cache video atm permettant une utilisation efficace de la largeur de bande pour des applications video a la demande
US8000647B2 (en) 2002-10-11 2011-08-16 At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. Method using a set-top box and communicating between a remote data network and a wireless communication network
WO2006028348A1 (fr) * 2004-09-10 2006-03-16 Interactive Tv Media Group Procede et systeme permettant d'appliquer un domaine de canal
EP1659755A1 (fr) * 2004-11-22 2006-05-24 Lucent Technologies Inc. Méthode et appareil pour caching pre-paquetisé pour des serveurs de réseau
US7711799B2 (en) 2004-11-22 2010-05-04 Alcatel-Lucent Usa Inc. Method and apparatus for pre-packetized caching for network servers
WO2008028834A2 (fr) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-13 Edgeware Ab Procédé et appareil pour la transmission de données en continu
WO2008028835A2 (fr) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-13 Edgeware Ab Procédé et appareil pour diffusion de données en continu
WO2008028834A3 (fr) * 2006-09-08 2008-04-17 Edgeware Ab Procédé et appareil pour la transmission de données en continu
GB2441575A (en) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-12 Edgeware Ab Video server using FPGA streamers with control GPU and memory wherein video data segments are chained with play, FF and rewind pointers
WO2008028835A3 (fr) * 2006-09-08 2008-08-21 Edgeware Ab Procédé et appareil pour diffusion de données en continu
GB2441577A (en) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-12 Edgeware Ab Video server using FPGA streamers with control GPU and memory wherein video data segments are chained with play, FF and rewind pointers
GB2441576A (en) * 2006-09-08 2008-03-12 Edgeware Ab Video server using FPGA streamers with control GPU and memory wherein video data segments are chained with play, FF and rewind pointers
US8826345B2 (en) 2006-09-08 2014-09-02 Edgeware Ab Method and an apparatus for data streaming
GB2449068A (en) * 2007-05-08 2008-11-12 Edgeware Ab Data streaming using stored control data

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
TW252248B (en) 1995-07-21
KR100209834B1 (ko) 1999-07-15
EP0698982B1 (fr) 2003-03-19
JPH0884143A (ja) 1996-03-26
CA2149480C (fr) 2003-10-14
JP3730686B2 (ja) 2006-01-05
DE69529948D1 (de) 2003-04-24
CN1118959A (zh) 1996-03-20
BR9503452A (pt) 1996-05-28
CA2149480A1 (fr) 1996-02-24
US5758085A (en) 1998-05-26
CN1134934C (zh) 2004-01-14
EP0698982A3 (fr) 1998-04-15
ATE235128T1 (de) 2003-04-15
DE69529948T2 (de) 2003-12-11

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
EP0698982B1 (fr) Serveur à base de mémoire à semi-conducteur pour fournir information multimedia sur démande dans un réseau de grande extension
US5915094A (en) Disk access method for delivering multimedia and video information on demand over wide area networks
US5987501A (en) Multimedia system having server for retrieving media data as indicated in the list provided by a client computer
US5974496A (en) System for transferring diverse data objects between a mass storage device and a network via an internal bus on a network card
US6029194A (en) Audio/video media server for distributed editing over networks
US7694013B2 (en) Duplicating switch for streaming data units to a terminal
US5978843A (en) Scalable architecture for media-on-demand servers
CHIUEH et al. Design and implementation of the stony brook video server
CA2445798A1 (fr) Commutateur de duplication pour transmission en continu d'unites de donnees a un terminal
AU2002305256A1 (en) A duplicating switch for streaming data units to a terminal
Kumar Video-server designs for supporting very large numbers of concurrent users
KR100823731B1 (ko) 고성능 스트리밍 서버 시스템에서 컨텐트 설치장치 및 방법
Buddhikot et al. Enhancements to 4.4 BSD UNIX for E cient Networked Multimedia in Project MARS
Braun et al. A modular VLSI implementation architecture for communication subsystems
Kumar et al. A High Performance Multimedia Server For Broadband Network Enviromment
JPH117422A (ja) メモリ搭載型の高速通信インタフェースボードとデータの送受信方法
Eberle Switcherland—A scalable interconnection structure for distributed computing

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
PUAI Public reference made under article 153(3) epc to a published international application that has entered the european phase

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009012

AK Designated contracting states

Kind code of ref document: A2

Designated state(s): AT BE CH DE ES FR GB IT LI NL SE

17P Request for examination filed

Effective date: 19960626

PUAL Search report despatched

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009013

AK Designated contracting states

Kind code of ref document: A3

Designated state(s): AT BE CH DE ES FR GB IT LI NL SE

17Q First examination report despatched

Effective date: 20011023

GRAG Despatch of communication of intention to grant

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOS AGRA

GRAG Despatch of communication of intention to grant

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOS AGRA

GRAH Despatch of communication of intention to grant a patent

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOS IGRA

GRAH Despatch of communication of intention to grant a patent

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOS IGRA

GRAA (expected) grant

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009210

AK Designated contracting states

Designated state(s): AT BE CH DE ES FR GB IT LI NL SE

PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: NL

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT

Effective date: 20030319

Ref country code: BE

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT

Effective date: 20030319

Ref country code: AT

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT

Effective date: 20030319

REG Reference to a national code

Ref country code: GB

Ref legal event code: FG4D

REG Reference to a national code

Ref country code: CH

Ref legal event code: NV

Representative=s name: JULIAN DAVID WILLIAMS C/O INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS M

Ref country code: CH

Ref legal event code: EP

REF Corresponds to:

Ref document number: 69529948

Country of ref document: DE

Date of ref document: 20030424

Kind code of ref document: P

PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: SE

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT

Effective date: 20030619

NLV1 Nl: lapsed or annulled due to failure to fulfill the requirements of art. 29p and 29m of the patents act
PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: ES

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT

Effective date: 20030930

ET Fr: translation filed
PLBE No opposition filed within time limit

Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009261

STAA Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent

Free format text: STATUS: NO OPPOSITION FILED WITHIN TIME LIMIT

26N No opposition filed

Effective date: 20031222

PGFP Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: FR

Payment date: 20060724

Year of fee payment: 12

PGFP Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: IT

Payment date: 20060731

Year of fee payment: 12

Ref country code: DE

Payment date: 20060731

Year of fee payment: 12

PGFP Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: CH

Payment date: 20061026

Year of fee payment: 12

PGFP Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: GB

Payment date: 20070713

Year of fee payment: 13

REG Reference to a national code

Ref country code: CH

Ref legal event code: PL

PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: LI

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES

Effective date: 20070731

Ref country code: DE

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES

Effective date: 20080201

Ref country code: CH

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES

Effective date: 20070731

REG Reference to a national code

Ref country code: FR

Ref legal event code: ST

Effective date: 20080331

PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: FR

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES

Effective date: 20070731

GBPC Gb: european patent ceased through non-payment of renewal fee

Effective date: 20080724

PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: GB

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES

Effective date: 20080724

PG25 Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo]

Ref country code: IT

Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES

Effective date: 20070724